As Turkey sees a violent lapse in ceasefire with the outlawed PKK, the most common argument read in the press as an explanation is that this is an Erdogan plot to create chaos, thus earn votes in a snap election and usher his much desired enhanced presidency. It is a comforting clear cut explanation amplified both by domestic Turkish politics and international trends, yet, it is horribly misleading and far from helpful in understanding and responding to latest developments.

Even if there were to be new elections this year, there is no grounds to think that the outcome will be any different than June elections. Far from it, after a decade of pursuing half-baked policies and outreaches on Kurdish concerns and historic direct talks with the PKK, AKP has lost majority of its Kurdish voters due to a series of incidences from the Uludere bombing to Kobane to nationalist discourses deployed during the last minute attempts to stop vote loss in June.

It is the shifting Kurdish vote, both from the AKP, but also from a younger Kurdish generation that voted for the first time, and unprecedented level of turnout that gave the main surge for HDP to achieve passing of the 10% threshold. The much hyped Turkish 'left' and 'liberal' votes to HDP for sure contributed some, but in no way as decisively as it has been assumed. With the current developments, the Kurdish votes are not coming back to the AKP in the near future. Thus, HDP's 10% success is set to remain as it is.

The nationalist votes AKP lost to MHP are also not coming back. MHP has played its cards effectively in this process, and while commending AKP to finally respond to the threat of PKK, it has also condemned AKP for allowing such a wide space for PKK and letting these risks reach this level. MHP meets the strong nationalist vote amidst such a charged political setting and attacks by PKK more than the AKP, as the luxury of being in the opposition gives it the chance to declare a much harsher and uncompromising stand. In other words, the nationalist votes too are not coming back to the AKP in the near future.

Therefore, snap elections before the end of 2015 as assumed to be happening by many is a serious risk for AKP. There is no added vote value of such a violent lapse with PKK for the AKP. If it was merely about AKP's vote games, other parties could have responded effectively, and most importantly the PKK and Kurdish politicians would have refused to play the game Erdogan wants, which they effectively did in lead up to the June 2015 elections and caused the first actual loss to AKP since 2002. It is a bitter fact after all that we still do not have a coalition government formed.

It is indeed a universal rule; politicians will seek to expand interests and minimise risks in moments of conflicts. That applies to Erdogan, as well as to all other political actors in Turkey from Demirtas to Bahceli. For the most seasoned Turkey analysts, however, a few facts matter more than this problematic and superficial election talk: the legacy of a 30 years long armed conflict; deeply internalised patterns of escalation- violence- response between the PKK and Turkish Armed Forces; developments in Syria and Iraq and their spill over impacts on Turkey; Turkish state's short-term and long-term security threat perceptions of PKK and future of Syria and Iraq; macro geo-political shifts occurring across the region with serious implications for Turkey; a disturbed equilibrium of peace incentives for both the AKP government, HDP and PKK; polarised political and social atmosphere in Turkey that have fatally tied the peace talks to Erdogan's future by his supporters and opposers thus to temporary politics; attempts to manipulation of Kurdish issue for Turkey by Assad, ISIS and even Iran.

Only after talking about these complex issues could one ask what this might or might not mean for Erdogan. As I have often said; Erdogan is not a Jedi Knight. He does not hold a magical power that controls all of these factors and actors. That is why AKP lost in June, even when the hype in media suggested that the elections were set to be fixed in a Russia like authoritarian state that Turkey became. He is at his political weakest. His plans for presidency are no longer possible. AKP's maintaining of the government is the only chance for him and AKP's leaders to stop what might be a process that might very well be the end of their political futures, which will open the door for serious personal vulnerabilities.

Parroting Erdoganology to explain everything in Turkey through him is not analysis. The suffering of Kurds in Turkey have a century long history. PKK's crimes in Turkey and militancy have decades long bitter traces in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran among Turks, Kurds, Arabs and Persians. Almost auto-pilot out of proportion responses by the Turkish army/police and waves of Turkish and Kurdish nationalism they create have played themselves out again and again for decades to such a level that one feels a constant deja vu.

These realities existed before and will exist after Erdogan. What Erdoganolgy is only good for is retweets in social media, and for people who are deeply engrossed in Turkey's culture wars and zero-sum mental and political spaces to tease whether you are with 'them' or the 'other'. Yet, they leave us high and dry, none the wiser about how to take peace forward in Turkey, Syria and Iraq, and how to minimise the spill overs of a brutal civil war continuing, and how to ensure that short-term and short-sighted Turkish politics and suffocating culture wars do not cause more damage.

It is a common language. Many people in the UK, including some
Muslims, use it. It saves time and energy in media conversations and
most importantly helps to fit a thought into 140 characters of Twitter
wisdom. Yet it is horribly misleading and potentially harmful.

It is misleading because there is no such thing as "the Muslim
community" in the UK. There are Muslims for sure. Yes, Islam as a shared
religion with its religious holidays and activities link Muslims, but
they are not a single community. There are countless diaspora networks,
some small neighbourhoods where people of similar ethnic origins live in
close proximity, and a lot of different mosques and myriad Muslim
organisations.

Migration patterns might give more numerical precedent or visibility
to some groups, but substantial numbers of British Muslims are just like
substantial numbers of British Christians. They dwell in multiple
networks at work, school, personal life and religious involvement. They
might or not be attending a local church (read mosque). They might be
praying on their own, listening to sermons on line, and may be dropping
in at a church for special days like Christmas and Easter (read Eid).

Some might be Anglicans (read Muslims that are in organised
denominations with formal clerical structures), or like free
Evangelicals (read mosques centred on a single minister). Some are like
the Emergent Christians, (read Muslims who are on a spiritual journey
and find it difficult to fit into a formal mosque). Some might cherish
their ethnic heritage, go to family reunions, or it might be that they
are a nuclear family and really have no enchanting large weddings but a
civil registry and no 'exotic' migrant background.

This poses some serious questions on people we see on our
televisions as 'community leaders' and 'spokespersons' for Muslims, or
our perceptions of an organised and organic block called 'the Muslim
community'. In fact, we mostly see British Muslims with Pakistani and
Bangladeshi origins put in such roles, but never British Muslims with
Cypriot, Nigerian, Turkish, Somalian, Egyptian, Lebanese, Iraqi, or
Syrian origins. There are rather a lot of them too. Not many of us know
why someone calls themselves a sheikh, or why they are called a 'leader'
and whom it is they are leading or who is following them.

We would not dare to think that a single Anglican vicar could speak
for Anglicanism, let alone British Christianity. And rightfully, we
would laugh if someone referred to a 'British Christian Community'. We
Christians believe in the 'holy catholic church' with a small c, and
being members of the Body of Christ. But we do know that the theological
belief and aspiration in no way captures the reality. Christians come
in all shapes and sizes, in all political and theological views, with
many cultural backgrounds. Christianity becomes the umbrella for all of
us to remain under, made possible by certain theological basics we
share.

That is the same for Islam and Muslims. Yes, Islam speaks of an umma,
and unity of Muslims. But while Muslims might see a global affinity
with other Muslims, in reality, umma is only an elusive longing at best.
In reality even though there is an umbrella of basic tenets of faith in
common, Muslims are as fragmented and as disconnected from their
co-religionists as anyone else in the world. Differences of language,
politics, culture, theology and personal differences are very real.

When we apply to Muslims what we would never apply to ourselves, the
issue goes beyond being simply an intellectual failure. We are effacing
and dehumanising up to 3 million Brits who are Muslims, lumping them
into a tiny box that is not there, burdening them with a responsibility
for all other Muslims which we'd never place on ourselves for all other
Christians out there.

We want the world to be simple. We want to be able to have clear
lines. We want to be able to have a structure where we can go to engage.
Thus, we burden British Muslims with our own shortcomings, demanding
apologies from them for things they have nothing to do and asking them
to "sort their community out" when the community they are part of is
actually the British Community, which includes you and me, thus,
ironically, burdening us with a lot of sorting out too.

After each terror incident relating to Muslim extremism, we see avalanches of commentary debating the doctrines of jihad in Islamic thought. A notable example of this is a recent essay by Graeme Wood in The Atlantic, “What ISIS Really Wants,” which has sparked a firestorm of debate. The trouble with these discussions is that they confuse theological justifications made by radical groups for the use of violence with causes behind the emergence and deployment of violence and its appeal among particular groups. The sum of all of the discussions on jihad in Islamic thought only leads us to a conclusion that it is permissible for a Muslim to deploy violence under certain circumstances and conditions. This finding is neither interesting nor useful for policymakers and strategists.

All uses of violence, whether by militants, terrorists or regular armies, need framing and validation. The social mechanisms used for unleashing violence as well as controlling the limits and outcomes of violent episodes are universal. It is not only religions that offer a cosmic framing of why war or violence might be inevitable at times; secular humanism, nationalism, socialism, liberalism, and international law too provide us with the same grounding, using the same mechanisms to appeal to and mobilize human beings. In fact, our common language of “just war” is a deeply theological framing and validation of the use of violence.

Thus, focusing on how the use of violence is justified in Islamic thought does not leave us any wiser about why we have seen groups like Boko Haram and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) emerge, and why we have increasing numbers of people joining their campaigns and committing acts of terror as part of an “imagined community” fighting an imagined global battle.

It is clear that religion is an important part of this issue, but a healthy theological discussion starts somewhere else. The fundamental theological question that lies behind the appeal of such groups is not that of jihad but of theodicy.

This is not merely a highbrow intellectual ordering of theological debates in a linear fashion. It is a vital re-focusing of analytical energy and, most importantly, of responses given to countering violent extremism and programming that seeks to address radicalization.

It has been some 300 years since Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz coined the word “theodicy”, deriving from two Greek words that can be understood as “justifying God.” It refers to questions nearly as old as humanity: Why does God permit evil in the world? Why do bad things happen to good people? If God is omnipotent, holy and loving, then the presence of suffering and evil in the world poses a serious challenge to idea of God.

While the question of theodicy is now most commonly posed as an atheistic challenge to religious belief, the question itself is about human experience in a world that often feels out of control, unfair and full of injustice. It is the fundamental question of human existence. Thus, Albert Camus famously stated that, “there is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide”, simply because the absurdity and suffering human beings are exposed to demands an explanation and resolution. As Nietzsche put it: those who have a why to live, can bear almost any how.

It is this question that connects the Book of Job in the Bible with writings of Viktor Frankl and with one of the oldest stories we have on record, “The Dispute of a Man with his Soul”. This is a story recorded on papyrus from 2000 BCE, in which a poor man does not see a reason to live and wants to end his life. His suicide is prevented by his soul who convinces him that he must work hard and get rich for a glorious funeral so that at least the soul will have a good life in the next world.

The fundamental imperative to make sense of the suffering in the world, find a reason to wake up in the morning, and decide what to do with our lives is as much a personal burden as it is a political one. Thus, it is not just Buddha who saw suffering and offered a path to address it. Communism, socialism, and the project of human rights also follow the same structure of reading the world: diagnosing what is wrong and offering a solution to it.

The project of the modern nation state, with its narratives and all-encompassing structures, has been another answer given to the same human quest for meaning, safety, stability, immortality—achieved through the narratives of belonging to a nation and cosmic reasons for why “we” and “our land” are special.

The same quest lies at the heart of why most radical religious organizations and responses emerge in failed states and conflict zones. While we were amusing ourselves with the myopic question of how religion leads to violence we have missed out on the main question: How does violence alter religion and religious believers? Exposure to violence and injustice, seeing no “why”, and looking for a “how” to survive, requires theological responses in their rawest form: What is wrong with this universe? What is right? How do I understand what I see? How do I respond to the challenges and how do I live?

When a state fails, when its promise to deliver a fair society does not actualize, and all other offers of a solution remain too feeble, religious networks, imaginations, solidarities, and mobilizations emerge as the most powerful, and often the only alternative, to address the question of theodicy and recreate a moral order.

Thus, Boko Haram is not the first cult to employ gross violence in Nigeria. In the 1970s and 80s, an identical group named Maitatsine, in the same vein, spread like a plague and took thousands of lives. They were only finally stopped by an equally brutal military response. Both Boko Haram and Maitatsine followed the story line of “retreat” like the hijra of Prophet Muhammad, leaving persecution, corruption and idolatry behind in pursuit of a purer community and holier lives. It is only later on that both groups transform into violent beasts.

For the European jihadi, too, the first question is not whether the Qur’an or Prophet teaches jihad. It is first a moral reading of the universe through personal experience, and the finding that it is corrupt, chaotic, and unfair. That is why it was only after deciding to travel to Syria for jihad did two confused British gap-year-adventure jihadis order “Qur’an for Dummies”. And that is also why ISIL pursues intense indoctrination to keep the jihadists in the right cosmic war framework before they realize the absurdity of war, which is never glorious or beautiful, as it is in the movies.

In other words, by the time theological discussion of when and how Muslims can engage in violent jihad occurs, the more important questions will have already been asked and answered. Jihad is the last theological question. The context in which religious actors found themselves first forces them into a formulation to answer theodicy. It then sets them on a reading of the universe and shows them a path of salvation, a path of solving the problems.

In a context where violence is already present indiscriminately, it is easily seen as a regular and legitimate political option. Deployment of violence becomes a radical attempt to tame, control and re-order a universe that seems to be in decay and evil. Thus, it is not nihilistic as it is often thought, but a Nietzschean attempt to move ‘beyond good and evil’, to establish a new moral order as an answer to the question of theodicy.

An understanding of religious violence deployed by Muslim extremism through the question of theodicy rather than jihad has countless direct implications: from our aid and development programs to long-term counter-terror strategies at home and in theaters of conflict.

Most obviously, this means that we should stop efforts to have other Muslims “condemn violence in the name of Islam” or push for programs that promote theologies that challenge the use of violence. Such programs help to a certain extent, but often lead to a lot of counter-productive pressure on Muslims.

The main theological challenge that lies before us is not whether or not a Muslim can commit acts of terror, but rather, how can there be theologies of hope and social change that channel deep grievances and deprivations into non-destructive activism. This means that our efforts to offer counter-narratives and break cycles of radicalization should not go through arguments on jihad and violence, but projects and messaging that offers a hopeful reading of the world and how deeply religious believers can work to improve, heal and restore a broken world.

New essay by Ziya Meral on Turkish Iranian relations in report "Post-Nuclear: the Future for Iran in its Neighborhood", European Council on Foreign Relations

Turkey and Iran have once again found themselves facing parallel
challenges in the form of the group that calls itself Islamic State
(here ISIS) and its implications for both countries’ security
policies as well as interests in Syria and Iraq. These developments
have led to some suggestions that Turkey and Iran could explore and
co-operate on areas of mutual interest closely.

While such
efforts and regional developments do bring the two countries closer,
this essay argues that a brief look at the history of relations
between the two countries, particularly during the last ten years,
reveals a pattern of similar moments when both countries faced shared
challenges and sought to work closely, which only revealed deeper
differences and conflicts of interests and produced primarily mutual
economic benefit. It argues that Iran and Turkey continue to walk a
tightrope between the prospects of major diplomatic fallout caused by
opposing policies and interests in the Middle East and the benefits
of maintaining good bilateral relations.

It is that time of the political calendar
once again when politicians try to outbid each other in what is now
horribly dull and repetitive public discussion on migration. Whilst
voices from the business world have continually raised their concerns
about the adverse effects of such politics on the British economy, and
academics have demonstrated serious problems with the figures and
hyperbole casually thrown into discussions to incite hysteria over
migration, not many have asked what the Conservatives might be losing in
this process.

Attempts to appeal to cohorts concerned
enough about migration to consider voting for UKIP is not surprising.
Thus the appointment of Sir Andrew Green to the House of Lords and the
careless comments made by Michael Fallon did not really shock or awe any
of us. If anything, we have been underwhelmed. Yet, what has been
increasingly shocking is the continual short-sightedness of such moves,
and that the Conservatives still do not recognise what they are losing
in this process: the substantial number of votes that they could attract
from British citizens who are naturalised or with migrant origins.

For those whose understanding of
contemporary Britain and its myriad communities and citizenry is
outdated, the main constituency of the Conservative Party might still be
imagined to be the archetypal “English” voter. But the reality is that a
significant portion, if not the majority, of naturalised citizens and
their children have values much closer to traditional Conservative ones
than to those of any other party.

This is particularly so for those of African,
Asian, Middle Eastern, Latin American and Eastern and Southern European
origin. Voters from these backgrounds tend to be much more socially,
religiously, culturally and politically conservative. The legends of
“benefit cheats and tourists” blind us from seeing that the vast
majority of Brits with migrant roots have had to work incredibly hard to
make their home in the UK, and to advance the wellbeing of their
family.

Therefore, they highly value hard work, and
appreciate the safety nets provided by the British welfare system –
since their experiences in their respective countries of origin make
them acutely aware of the UK system’s uniqueness in the world. And,
ironically, if you want to hear the harshest stands on migration, access
for new migrants to public funds, the importance of ensuring new
migrants respect and cherish the UK, and limiting of number of migrants
who can be naturalised as citizens, you need look no further than
British voters who were naturalised, or who were born to parents who
were migrants.

This means that Conservative Party should
appeal to a substantial percentage of such voters with its current
platform. The reality is that it is not able to. Many answers can be
given as to why this is the case. Clearly, the party still has a long
way to go in having voices from such backgrounds represented, and a lot
of homework to do in understanding these communities. Yet even if the
Conservative Party were to address these concerns, the language and tone
of migration debates would always be a hindrance for the large number
of voters who feel inclined towards traditional conservative values but
cannot bring themselves to vote for a Conservative candidate because the
rhetoric excludes them.

Often migration discussions lapse into
xenophobia, scapegoating and the demonisation of migrants, which in turn
makes Brits with migrant roots feel distanced and targeted. It is all
the more discouraging that migrant voices are completely absent from
discussions on migration, and that most discussions are held as if there
are no migrants in the room and somehow migrants don’t hear what is
being said about them.

The outcomes of this range from the UK
missing out on attracting global talent to British businesses, migrants
struggling to integrate and feeling alienated from the British society
(which creates fertile ground for radicalisation), and a significant
number of Brits feeling that they have no voice in the future of their
country. Beyond the domestic context, it is also costing the UK
diplomatic capital by underutilising the potential of its own diverse
population as natural bridges for global outreach for British
government, businesses and culture.

There is a way to discuss the migration issue
– which is not only a British challenge but a global one, with
identical arguments unfolding all across the world – without alienating
migrants and British citizens with migrant roots. If the Conservative
Party were to crack that code, it could gain more votes by attracting
these rather than by alienating them. This is a painful but necessary
process for the Conservatives. The Conservative Party needs to re-read
its voter base, take this challenge seriously, alter its public language
on migration and move beyond seeing potential candidates with migrant
roots as peripheral window-dressing rather than as integral parts of the
future of the party, just as they are integral parts of the future of
United Kingdom.

The developments in the Middle East over the last three years have
brought home the points which many experts and practitioners have been
making: persecution on the basis of religious belief and affiliation is
increasing in the world. It is affecting every faith community and those
with no faith, fuelling a wide range of interrelated problems from
radicalisation to violent conflict, with direct impact on UK domestic
concerns such as increasing numbers of asylum applications and faith
community relations.

Now, articles calling for an immediate UK response to religious
freedom can be seen emerging from all corners of the political and
social spectrum. Whilst these articles stem from good intentions, they
suffer similar shortcomings.

Often they start from domestic political and religious positions with
a wide range of unspoken anxieties about particular religions or the
overall place of religion in today’s world. Most of the time they lack a
grounded understanding of local contexts in which religious persecution
happens, and lapse into reductionism, seeing a particular religion as
the root cause of all that we see unfolding before us.

They also lack awareness of global trends and mirror-image
developments in Africa, Asia, and even Europe, that make such reductions
of the issue down to a single religion rather shallow. Most worryingly,
such articles often ascribe no agency whatsoever to persecuted
communities themselves and what they can do and how they can respond in
the short and long term to address factors leading to persecution.
One can easily list the causes behind these failures; very few
academics actually study religious freedom and religious persecution in
the UK, let alone teach it as a course. Hardly any British think-tank
has ever conducted a proper study and developed a thought-through policy
proposal for the Government besides the myopia of countering violent
extremism.

Religious freedom advocacy groups also play their part in this
failure: the vast majority are mono-faith organisations, primarily
working to advance the rights of their own co-religionists, which is
ultimately counter-productive and fraught with ethical shortcomings.

Most importantly, their work is primarily reactionary. They document,
lobby and raise the profile of cases of persecution with little
reflection provided on the very modus operandi of religious freedom
advocacy and its future. One can forgive this shortcoming due to the
simple fact of limited resources, and, most importantly, chronic
ignorance over these issues for decades by mainstream human rights
groups, with notable exceptions such as the Minority Rights Group.

The truth is, long before ISIS brought the conversation onto centre
stage, increased attention was already being given to the topic within
the FCO and British Parliament. The FCO’s human rights team has
increased its reporting on these issues and provided training
opportunities to British diplomats on religious freedom. At the
parliamentary level, the All Party Parliamentary Group on International
Religious Freedom has silently achieved what has never before happened
in the UK: it brought a wide range of political figures from different
faith and belief backgrounds to raise the issue within the UK political
establishment.

Yet this is not enough. While there is merit in the calls for the
appointment of an Ambassador at Large for Religious Freedom, inspired by
the US model, experience from that same model shows how ineffectual
this can be. Similarly, given that the US diplomatic machinery produces
two sets of excellent reports every year on the situation of religious
freedom in most countries in the world, there is no reason for the UK to
re-invent the wheel and increase its own reporting.

What the UK government can do, and must do, is to carry the religious
freedom conversation forward at home, in the EU and the wider
international community. The unique contribution the UK government can
make to this end is to focus its attention on the proactive aspects of
religious freedom advocacy.

First of all, the religious freedom issue must be taken together with
all of its interrelated aspects, from conflict to stabilization, good
governance, human rights and humanitarian crises and public diplomacy.
This would mean that religious freedom would not continue to be simply a
conversation between the FCO and concerned Members of Parliament, but
it would directly involve DFID, the Home Office and the Prime Minister’s
office.

Secondly, this is a truly complicated issue that demands a wide range
of expertise, ranging from specific country and issue experts, to human
rights advocates, programming and foreign policy specialists. This is
not simply an issue of gathering faith-based NGOs and clergymen to
express goodwill. The UK must have its own mechanism in which ongoing
issues are analysed and pro-active policy proposals are developed and
synchronised across UK government structures.

Thirdly, the UK government must genuinely put its weight behind such a
mechanism by directly allocating funds that can be deployed for
strategic programmes across the world, and to enable direct access to
high-level policy makers across UK state structures. Otherwise, sadly,
all these well-intentioned calls for a response, and the
clearly-expressed desire of the Government to increase its attention to
this issue will be included in the increasingly long list of superficial
conversations, when the stakes have never been higher.